Public images of alcoholism: data from a Georgia survey

Attitudes toward alcoholism among a representative sample of 524 adults in Georgia indicate acceptance of the disease concept remains incomplete. Despite expected regional differences, results from bivariate analyses are consistent with previous research conducted in other areas of the U.S. The Georgia data indicate similar levels of acceptance of the disease concept of alcoholism, similar demographic correlates with that acceptance and similar treatment recommendations for alcoholism. Attitudes toward alcoholism are found to be significantly correlated with views concerning cocaine dependence, but the acceptance of the disease concept of alcoholism is significantly greater. The multivariate discriminant analysis reveals that education and income are the most significant discriminators between the medical and moral/medical images of alcoholism, followed by religion, age and race.